The NXR Podcast - SERMON - True Unity Always Includes Division

00:00:00.160 Next week, Lord willing, we will begin our series through the book of Ezra.

00:00:04.360 And so, more often than not, the steady diet of preaching here at Covenant Bible Church is not only expositional, but expository.

00:00:12.440 All that means is that expositional means that there's always going to be an exposition of a primary text of Scripture.

00:00:19.220 That the man of God, if he is faithful, he does not come before the people of God and say,

00:00:24.580 I have a dream, or I have a strategy, or I have an idea.

00:00:28.960 But rather he says, I have a text.

00:00:31.260 I have a text, something from God's Word.

00:00:33.780 Good preaching, I believe, is comprised of three primary components.

00:00:37.820 That would be revelation, interpretation, and application.

00:00:42.220 Revelation comes from God.

00:00:44.580 The only revelation that is valid, that is legitimate, that is infallible, inerrant,

00:00:50.080 is the Scripture, the Word of God.

00:00:52.660 So the revelation and good preaching should be a primary text of Scripture.

00:00:56.480 then interpretation is the first availability for human error to enter the equation but by God's

00:01:03.740 grace we seek to be those who teach God's word knowing that they will be held to greater account

00:01:09.640 we seek to be good students of God's word rightly dividing the word of truth so that the revelation

00:01:15.440 which is infallible the Bible is improperly and rightly interpreted exegeted and then lastly

00:01:21.780 application saying this is God's word this is what God means by his word and then lastly this

00:01:28.060 is how we should live in light of what God has said in his word and so good preaching I believe

00:01:33.880 is revelation interpretation application and you can do that with isolated passages of scripture

00:01:40.060 and if you've been with us over the the previous months that's what we've been doing is we've been

00:01:44.240 bouncing around each week always having a primary text of scripture I haven't come and said I have

00:01:50.320 an idea. I have a strategy. I say, I have a text. There's something in God's Word. But this will be

00:01:56.260 the last week that we do bouncing around isolated texts of Scripture. That's expositional if you're

00:02:02.020 expositing a primary text of Scripture. But expository, not only expositional, but expository

00:02:08.560 preaching is the idea that we're going to go text by text by text in sequence. And so more often

00:02:14.760 than not always, we are committed to expositional preaching having a text. But more often than not,

00:02:21.920 not always, but most of the time, we're committed not only to expositional preaching, I have a text,

00:02:27.860 but expository preaching, I'm going to go from start to finish through whole books of the Bible

00:02:33.860 so that we're not just getting an isolated text that may or may not be taken out of context,

00:02:39.260 but we're getting a whole book of the Bible. And so that's what we've done with the book of Hebrews.

00:02:43.920 We did that with the book of Joshua, and we're going to be doing that, Lord willing, starting next Lord's Day with the book of Ezra.

00:02:51.160 For today, our last week of expositional but not expository preaching, bouncing around, our primary text for today is Ephesians chapter 4, verses 7 through 16.

00:03:01.300 I got into some of this principle in Scripture of unity and different kinds of unity last

00:03:08.420 week, and I decided that it would be helpful, I believe, for our church to address this

00:03:13.620 more thoroughly.

00:03:14.540 So this is a concept, biblical concept, that I addressed in part last week, but I'm going

00:03:19.360 to address, Lord willing, in full today.

00:03:21.980 So let's go ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word.

00:03:24.580 Again, our text for today is Ephesians chapter 4, verse 7 through 16.

00:03:28.960 I'll read the text in its entirety.

00:03:30.480 when i finish reading the text i'm going to say this is the word of the lord at which point i

00:03:34.720 would appreciate very much if you would respond by saying thanks be to god one final time our

00:03:39.860 text is ephesians chapter 4 verse 7 through 16 the bible says this but grace was given to each

00:03:46.900 one of us according to the measure of christ's gift therefore it says when he ascended on high

00:03:52.440 he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men in saying he ascended what does it mean

00:03:58.980 but that he also descended into the lower regions the earth he who descended is the one who also

00:04:06.740 ascended far above all the heavens that he might fill all things and he gave the apostles the

00:04:13.840 prophets the evangelists the shepherds and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry for

00:04:19.360 building up the body of christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of

00:04:25.500 the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that

00:04:32.100 we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of

00:04:39.800 doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth

00:04:46.380 in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole

00:04:53.820 body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is

00:05:00.120 working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. This is the word of the

00:05:07.560 Lord. All right, please be seated. Let's go ahead and dive right in. By way of introduction, I've

00:05:16.200 written the following. There are several passages of scripture that address the importance of unity

00:05:20.620 within the church through common care through love and charity toward one another however

00:05:26.900 Ephesians chapter 4 verses 7 through 16 is unique in the sense that it addresses the equal importance

00:05:34.220 the equally important need of unity in the church not only in the way we love one another

00:05:39.320 care love and charity but unity within the church through conviction doctrine and truth

00:05:47.280 that we don't merely want to have unity with one another due to charity amidst disagreement,

00:05:54.740 but preferably we would like to have unity as the church by having agreement. We want to have

00:06:02.400 charity towards one another, and there are times in this life, because of sin, sin mars everything,

00:06:08.240 including our understanding of biblical doctrine. And so because of a presence of sin, we don't,

00:06:13.760 even within the church, as Christians, we don't all agree on what precisely truth is. Now, if we

00:06:20.300 are, in fact, Christians, we're going to agree on doctrinal truth as it pertains to primary

00:06:26.080 theological doctrine. This is why theological triage, for lack of a better phrase or label,

00:06:31.900 is vitally important. It's important that we know truth, but it's also important that we rightly or

00:06:38.120 properly value different truth, right? So the truth of the Trinity trumps the truth of head

00:06:47.400 coverings. I think head coverings are important. I don't talk about it all the time, but I've talked

00:06:52.720 about it a couple times and usually get in trouble because people say, well, that's not

00:06:57.280 progressive. That seems misogynistic. You think women should cover their heads? That's not in

00:07:02.900 line with feminism? And I respond by saying, yes, I am patriarchal. And according to you,

00:07:09.080 a misogynist. In biblical terms, I'm not a misogynist. But according to you, if some

00:07:13.340 leftist says that I'm a misogynist, then I know I'm doing well. And if the average evangelical

00:07:19.480 Christian, this one hurts, calls me a feminist or a misogynist, I also know that I'm doing well.

00:07:26.580 Because most evangelicals are feminists today. So all that being said, the point is,

00:07:31.280 head coverings versus the trinity which one's more important the trinity right so uh that's

00:07:38.220 not relativism uh but that is theological triage right so it's just like like anatomy you know or

00:07:46.800 or when it comes to health um you know you can have uh some kind of health problem i'm not i'm

00:07:53.180 not going to give examples because i i will not know what i'm talking about and uh and it'll become

00:07:57.740 the parent very quickly. But let's just say, you know, you can have something that's wrong with

00:08:01.480 your body. And it's objectively wrong. We're not relativists. It's not like, well, you know,

00:08:06.180 you see that as a detriment. But some people over here see it as an improvement. And it's progressive

00:08:10.880 and it's good. No, there are certain things that are just objectively, universally across the board.

00:08:15.480 This is bad. But that doesn't mean that all ailments are equally bad, right? If you have

00:08:20.840 something bad that happened with your big toe, you know, that that is not on the same plane

00:08:26.940 has something bad going on with your heart, right?

00:08:30.420 So both, it's not that one, you know,

00:08:32.840 this is true and that's true

00:08:33.960 and these two things contradict each other

00:08:36.480 while being simultaneously true.

00:08:38.080 That's relativism,

00:08:39.200 which is a doctrine from the pit of hell.

00:08:41.160 Relativism is not a thing.

00:08:43.040 You cannot have two contradicting truths

00:08:46.000 that are both simultaneously true.

00:08:49.240 That's not possible.

00:08:50.680 You can have two contradicting statements

00:08:52.740 that are both wrong.

00:08:54.340 They can both be wrong,

00:08:55.300 but they both can't be right.

00:08:57.440 Now you can have two things and say both are true

00:09:00.760 but one truth is more important than the other.

00:09:03.440 They're both true and even equally true.

00:09:06.380 Not partially true or mostly true.

00:09:08.700 They are both 100% true.

00:09:11.860 And yet one truth still remains more valuable than the other.

00:09:15.780 So within the church, if we are in fact Christians,

00:09:19.020 there can be no debate on primary.

00:09:21.320 Going back to this idea of theological triage,

00:09:23.580 No debate, no disagreement on primary doctrine,

00:09:27.300 on primary theological truth, right?

00:09:29.820 So if somebody says, hey, you believe in the Trinity

00:09:31.820 and I don't, but we're both brothers in Christ,

00:09:34.360 the proper response is, no, you're going to hell.

00:09:38.280 You're going to hell.

00:09:39.320 You are not a brother in Christ,

00:09:41.040 but I pray that by God's grace that you might become one.

00:09:43.940 I'm not celebrating the fact

00:09:45.420 that you're not a brother in Christ.

00:09:46.460 I want you to be born again.

00:09:48.200 But there is no such thing as Christianity

00:09:50.380 that denies the eternal one essence,

00:09:55.240 divine essence, one God.

00:09:57.200 Behold, O Israel, your God is one.

00:09:59.620 One God eternally existing in three persons.

00:10:03.840 This is Christian doctrine

00:10:06.060 and it is primary Christian doctrine.

00:10:08.780 In addition to that, doctrines of soteriology.

00:10:12.220 Soteriology is just a theological term for salvation.

00:10:16.060 Not every doctrine pertaining to salvation is primary,

00:10:19.440 But the primary ones are primary. I'll give you an example. The five solas. The five solas, sola just being a Latin word for alone, like soul. This is the sole reason, the only reason, exclusive, alone.

00:10:33.360 The five solas are, and this is not my idea, I didn't come up with this yesterday, this has been argued for hundreds of years, the five solas are non-negotiable.

00:10:44.460 The five solas all pertain to salvation in some form of another.

00:10:49.780 Soteriology, salvation, how God saves, what salvation even is, the need for salvation, and the method of God that he's determined in his sovereignty for how he saves sinners unto himself.

00:11:02.500 So the five solas all deal with salvation, and they're all primary doctrine, which means to deny the solas is ultimately to be outside of the umbrella of Orthodox Christianity.

00:11:14.660 It is to be other than Christian. It is, therefore, in other words, to be non-Christian.

00:11:20.560 However, the doctrines of grace,

00:11:23.400 which just so happened to also be the number five,

00:11:26.300 can be, at some level, disagreed with,

00:11:30.660 and still that person could be a brother or sister in Christ.

00:11:33.880 Now, again, does that mean that the doctrines of grace,

00:11:37.560 when it comes to the doctrines of grace,

00:11:39.440 that all of a sudden we become relativists,

00:11:41.060 and that these doctrines are not empirically true?

00:11:45.040 No. The doctrines of grace are right.

00:11:47.760 And when I say the doctrines of grace,

00:11:49.040 I'm talking about, I'm talking about Calvinism. Sometimes, you know, you say doctrines of grace

00:11:53.680 or reformed, right? And a lot of these, and those are good words. But a lot of times it's,

00:11:59.880 the motive is to avoid the word Calvinism. But I don't avoid that word because I think it's a good

00:12:07.000 word. And people, well, Calvinism, that means you follow John Calvin. You follow a man. I follow

00:12:12.060 Christ. That's stupid. Just cut that out. You know, come up with a better argument. When I say

00:12:17.840 calvinism people say well you know creeds and confessions and doctrines you know no creed but

00:12:23.160 christ just give me the bible so well the bible's a really big book and and i don't always have the

00:12:29.140 time to explain you know 2500 pages to somebody passing by who asked me you know what what i

00:12:36.340 believe all right so it's helpful uh to be and and someone who says no creed but christ the question

00:12:41.640 that you should immediately ask is this who's christ right and then they say well what do you

00:12:46.920 mean? Well, is he God or is he man or is he fully God and fully man? That one. Was he born of a

00:12:54.340 virgin? Was he conceived? And within about a few minutes, it's like, great, you just confessed

00:13:00.680 the Nicene Creed. Wouldn't that have been easier if you just started with that? You think you're

00:13:06.020 so smart. That's the problem with our generation. We're smarter than everybody, which is not true.

00:13:10.760 IQs have actually been going down. So in real terms, we're done. We're real done. And if you

00:13:15.920 want to hedge protection against your own dumbness, and I have plenty of it myself, one way to protect

00:13:22.180 yourself against that is to read intelligent men. And for the record, most of them exist before

00:13:29.200 World War I and World War II. So if you want to be safe and you want to read truth, don't read

00:13:35.180 anybody who is currently alive or somebody who lived recently. And you don't have to go back

00:13:40.360 far. You don't have to read Athanasius. You don't have to necessarily read Augustine, although those

00:13:43.980 are good reads. But really, you only have to go back about 100 years, about 80 years even.

00:13:50.620 As long as you can get back before the weak gods entered into Western civilization, inclusivism,

00:13:56.720 diversity, openness. Diversity is our strength, but diversity not about ethnicity, but about

00:14:02.660 ideas. You believe something. Relativism is a good thing rather than objective truth. Everything

00:14:07.840 becomes interpersonal, atomistic, individualistic, society, the subjective reigning supreme over the

00:14:14.460 objective. All those ideas are bad. Every single one of them. These are bad ideas that were used

00:14:19.880 to destroy Western civilization because we were too strong. And we were strong because of Christendom,

00:14:24.940 not because of bloodlines, not because of ethnicity, not because of DNA. We were strong

00:14:29.820 because the Christian worldview turns out is true. And when a society, when a culture believes

00:14:36.020 the truth of God and begins to apply those truths to every single realm of life, including

00:14:41.900 mathematics and engineering and medicine and politics and the whole nine yards, guess what

00:14:47.140 happens with that civilization? It's blessed. It's blessed. So Christendom built the West.

00:14:53.460 Classical liberalism and principled pluralism appeared to be working, but only because they

00:14:59.340 were working off the fumes, running off the fumes of a prior Christian worldview. And now those

00:15:05.640 fumes have run dry. In comes post-modernism, in comes secularism, the subjective reigning supreme

00:15:12.120 over the objective, and all of a sudden, you know, people don't know what a boy is anymore.

00:15:18.680 And in a real objective sense, IQs have gotten lower, right? That's what happens. You abandon

00:15:25.920 Christ. One thing that you'll find through the Proverbs is a direct correlation between foolishness

00:15:32.140 and wickedness. Meaning you abandon Christ, you've done that which is wicked, but you've also done

00:15:38.360 that which is dumb. That sin actually makes someone a fool. The fool says in his heart,

00:15:45.460 there is no God. It's not just the wicked denies the truth of God or the mere existence of God.

00:15:51.140 It's not just sinister. It's not just morally wrong. It's also foolish and dumb and stupid.

00:15:59.580 And the Bible uses that word. Proverbs says the stupid, the ignorant, the foolish. And those two

00:16:06.200 things are always tied together. Wisdom and morality, right? Wisdom and righteousness.

00:16:13.760 They're like two peas in a pod. They go hand in glove. Likewise, foolishness and wickedness

00:16:20.000 will always, they're twins. They're conjoined twins. They're never separated. They always will

00:16:25.080 follow one another. And as Western civilization has rejected truth, that is an immoral decision,

00:16:32.460 a wicked decision, but it has given way to the immediate fruit and progressively gradually

00:16:38.000 growing fruit of foolishness. You reject Christ, that's bad. It's morally bad. And your IQ just

00:16:46.300 got lower. You just became dumber. Congratulations. So all that being said, my point is that with

00:16:52.780 western civilization making this point real quick and then going back with western civilization

00:16:56.740 the strength the strength of europe and the strength of these united states of america

00:17:02.480 was its devotion to christ and its devotion to the truth of christ found in the word of god

00:17:09.420 and not only in theory that's one more part that i'll add it wasn't just this is true and we agree

00:17:15.660 and give our assent to this truth on a theoretical plane in a esoteric sense no no no the puritans

00:17:24.360 the covenanters they believed if this is true then we should obey we should live it out we should

00:17:32.200 apply this truth in tangible ways not just theoretical but but not only in the theoretical

00:17:37.920 but in the practical and that was the the success of the west from constantine to king alfred um all

00:17:44.860 the way, you know, right now, like me and every other, you know, Christian guy between the age of

00:17:48.940 15, you know, and, and 85, you know, I'm reading Defenders of the West. I saw something on Twitter

00:17:56.720 the other day that was funny. It showed like a little kid who was like wearing the costume of

00:18:00.920 a crusader and said, this is how every little kid's going to be dressed up next Halloween,

00:18:04.940 because their dad is reading about the crusades and, you know, and getting red-pilled on the

00:18:09.940 Christians and, you know, and that, hey, maybe the crusades weren't quite as bad as revisionist

00:18:13.620 history has made it sound, you know, and Charlemagne, maybe he was actually a great guy, you

00:18:18.420 know, and Richard the Lionheart and Duke Gregory and all these guys. And so anyways, that's the

00:18:23.380 cool thing right now. If you want to be in the end, if you have a groaning suspicion that you

00:18:29.720 are missing out, if you're feeling a sense of FOMO, I'll tell you right now, the end thing

00:18:35.240 is to read about the Crusades and to say they were not perfect, but a lot better than people

00:18:41.240 saying, right? That's the cool thing to do. And then you don't, you don't have to feel like you're

00:18:43.960 missing out. But all that being said, my point is from Constantine, I mean, 1,500 years of Christendom.

00:18:49.800 That's what built the West. That's what built the West. It wasn't, it wasn't merely, there are,

00:18:54.860 in God's providence, there are certain things. America is pretty great geographically, right?

00:19:01.500 There is something to be said for 17,000 navigable miles of rivers in the United States. And I

00:19:08.600 believe it's like it's either 17,000 or 15,000, but then there's only about a comparable amount

00:19:16.200 of navigable rivers in the rest of the world all combined. So we have an equal amount in our

00:19:22.380 country of rivers that are actually able to navigate with large ships for transporting

00:19:28.120 goods and resources in our country equal to the rest of the world combined. Is that a factor to

00:19:34.600 america's success uh-huh probably i think so um certain resources natural resources the fact just

00:19:40.300 just the topography and the geography in terms of of defense right that on on both the east and the

00:19:46.520 west were guarded by oceans right that's just that's a lot easier to defend than being a small

00:19:52.820 country in the middle of the middle east right and to the north there's no threat there because

00:19:57.720 they're canadians you know and and to the south there is a massive threat we call it an invasion

00:20:03.800 it is an invasion but it is actually a threat that's easy to neutralize if we have politicians

00:20:10.120 that cared but we don't but we'll pray and we'll see what happens that's a long story so anyways

00:20:14.700 all that being said yeah that lent towards america's success there are certain practical

00:20:19.340 things even that's still within the sovereignty and providence of god but it's not only that

00:20:23.300 it's not only that the the key factor is the christian worldview uh that america was not just

00:20:30.180 blessed by god's providence but uniquely blessed in its obedience to god's word to god's word so

00:20:37.620 then how do you stop something like that because you're you become at some point so blessed and so

00:20:44.700 advanced and so well defended and strong and it's just you're punching way above your weight you you

00:20:52.120 you have resources that are exponentially by multiple times 10 10 times 10 times 10 times

00:20:58.980 over every other country in the world,

00:21:00.840 you become a superpower.

00:21:02.920 How do you defeat a superpower?

00:21:05.540 Ideas.

00:21:07.240 How do you defeat a superpower

00:21:09.500 that has the strongest military in the world?

00:21:11.880 Which arguably we don't anymore,

00:21:13.400 but did, and not that long ago.

00:21:16.260 You can't defeat them with blood, sweat, and tears.

00:21:19.140 You can't do it tangibly, physically.

00:21:21.940 But you can do it by pumping their kids with TikTok.

00:21:28.980 right like in china you watch tiktok videos i'm sure you're aware of this teenagers watch it and

00:21:34.660 it's like how to solve this math problem and that's the only tiktok available to teenagers in

00:21:39.700 china uh but in america it's like how to dance like a cat you know and because and that's

00:21:48.840 intentional that's not an accident it's and again c.a iq's lower iq's lower uh but the correlation

00:21:56.580 ultimately being, it's not just a practical phenomenon. It is a spiritual phenomenon. Rejection

00:22:02.460 of Christ, rebellion against Christ, foolishness and wickedness always coming as a pair. So how do

00:22:08.100 you destroy the West? Well, you do it ultimately through ideology. I would recommend there's two

00:22:13.560 great essays. They're collected and bound together in a little booklet. It's maybe 65 pages long.

00:22:20.620 it's called the fate of empires and basically just tracks you know major empires the babylonian

00:22:27.520 empire ottoman empire persians and medes you know and then rome would be one of the big ones and

00:22:32.360 and how did all these empires all at a certain point because america should be thought i'm not

00:22:37.160 saying that we should be this um but but this is what we have been america at some level should

00:22:42.840 be thought of an empire rather than a nation now i for the record would love to just be a a nation

00:22:48.300 or a republic, and not the world police. But we have been. That's just the reality. We have been

00:22:54.640 more than just a nation. We've been an empire. And so America, I think, tracks with other historic

00:22:59.580 empires. And when you look at empires on the whole that became superpowers, like Rome, the Roman

00:23:04.680 Greco Empire that was completely in control over the known world at the time, how does something

00:23:11.240 like that fall and and there are certain uh characteristics that were that were found in

00:23:18.600 every single major empire that led towards its ultimate demise one of them for the record uh

00:23:24.620 fun information one of them is altruism um but but an over emphasis on altruism meaning uh that

00:23:33.440 these empires uh they became so powerful that eventually the people felt a sense of guilt

00:23:38.940 And to relieve their consciences, to assuage their consciences, they decided to be generous and inviting and inclusive and giving, altruistic, but to a point where it became suicidal.

00:23:56.960 to a point where all of a sudden

00:24:00.480 they welcomed the empire stretch too wide,

00:24:03.440 too far, too inclusive,

00:24:05.060 and then there wasn't the central mold any longer

00:24:09.280 that actually held it together.

00:24:11.920 It turns out diversity was not Rome's strength.

00:24:15.440 Diversity was Rome's demise.

00:24:18.120 And again, diversity,

00:24:19.280 because when we think diversity,

00:24:20.620 because we've been pumped,

00:24:21.480 filled with critical race theory

00:24:22.600 and all these things,

00:24:23.380 we're thinking color.

00:24:25.200 The world is not all about color.

00:24:26.960 brothers and sisters. So when I talk about diversity, I'm not talking about black and

00:24:30.860 white ethnicity. I'm talking about diversity of convictions, truths, ideas, commitments.

00:24:38.520 I'm talking about diversity of tradition, diversity of religion. These are not strengths.

00:24:46.540 It is not a strength to say, you know what's great about our country? About 15% worships the

00:24:52.900 triune god but what's really cool is that another 10 worships satan and another 10 worships islam

00:24:59.880 but i repeat myself and another 10 worships you know talmudic judaism but i repeat myself right

00:25:07.260 so just satan fill in the blank satan satan say that's not a strength when we say principled

00:25:13.160 pluralism josiah king josiah would have heard that as polytheism and polytheism is just a placeholder

00:25:21.480 for idolatry.

00:25:24.960 Idolatry is not a strength.

00:25:27.440 When you hear diversity is our strength,

00:25:29.360 you should hear this.

00:25:30.400 What they're trying to convince you of

00:25:33.020 is idolatry is our strength.

00:25:35.700 Idolatry is never our strength.

00:25:38.100 A country where every single citizen

00:25:40.400 worships the triune God

00:25:42.420 by grace alone, through faith alone,

00:25:44.320 in Christ alone, has no diversity,

00:25:46.760 and it will be more blessed

00:25:48.720 than any other nation on the planet.

00:25:50.420 it diversity is not our strength not diversity of religion or tradition or culture again get the

00:25:58.300 ethnic the ethnicity thing is not the issue we've pinned so much on that but that's not the thing

00:26:05.240 okay so all that being said how do you destroy the west well you you end and this gets us back

00:26:10.120 to ephesians believe it or not the way you destroy the west is you tell them unity is all about love

00:26:17.340 for one another in the midst of zero unity when it comes to our beliefs. That's not right.

00:26:26.600 And that's the kind of unity that the West has adopted. And right on schedule, like a German

00:26:32.740 freight train, right? It's never late. Right on schedule, the evangelical church of the West

00:26:38.500 adopted the very same thing. And the evangelical church, the very people of God, began to pick up

00:26:44.480 that same rhetoric and boast as though it was somehow a benefit to say you know what's great

00:26:49.840 about our church what's great about our church is we really love each other even though we all have

00:26:54.540 different theological convictions how is that how is that great because again we're not relativist

00:27:02.000 and if you all have differing theological convictions that actually contradict one another

00:27:06.800 then at best, at best, only one of you is right and everyone else is wrong, which I feel like I

00:27:16.160 don't have to bring it home, but I will just to make it painfully clear. If one of you is right

00:27:21.320 and everyone else is wrong, that's what you do not call a strength. That's not strength.

00:27:28.500 That is wicked, which is also synonymous, comes in a pair with dumb.

00:27:35.740 You're dumb.

00:27:37.080 Your church is dumb.

00:27:38.700 It's not helpful.

00:27:40.340 It doesn't please the Lord.

00:27:42.060 It's not a benefit to the body of Christ.

00:27:44.160 It's not loving to your neighbors, even your unbelieving neighbors who don't know Christ

00:27:49.020 because they're now confused.

00:27:51.340 Someone shared the gospel with me.

00:27:52.820 And then sister so-and-so, they shared the gospel with me.

00:27:55.500 And it was two different gospels.

00:27:57.900 Not helpful. And just to tie up a loose end here, going back to the doctrines of grace in the five

00:28:03.340 solos, all right? So just in case, because people are always new, and I don't want to take for

00:28:07.100 granted that you know all these things. I use big words from time to time because I'm not the

00:28:11.640 smartest guy in the world. It makes me feel better about myself. But no, that's not why. It's because

00:28:15.360 I want to tell you, well, that is true, but that's not why. That is true. But I use these words

00:28:22.300 because they are theological words, and I want you to learn those words. But what I try to do

00:28:27.080 is also define them.

00:28:28.740 So soteriology, I said,

00:28:30.200 that's the doctrine of salvation.

00:28:32.120 But I want to use that word

00:28:33.000 that way in your own study,

00:28:34.640 in your own private practices of piety

00:28:36.480 and as you're reading theology,

00:28:38.240 you come across that and go,

00:28:39.360 oh, I know what that is.

00:28:40.600 I want us to learn.

00:28:42.500 And so all that being said,

00:28:43.760 the five doctrines of grace,

00:28:45.660 that is the five points of Calvinism,

00:28:47.360 which doesn't mean you follow John Calvin.

00:28:49.120 It means you follow Jesus

00:28:50.280 and you think that John Calvin,

00:28:53.020 in a synopsis sense,

00:28:54.760 that he summarized Jesus' doctrine of salvation

00:28:58.500 in a very helpful way.

00:29:01.540 You're not saying I follow Calvin instead of Christ.

00:29:04.260 You're saying I follow Christ,

00:29:05.940 and what I mean by following Christ

00:29:07.980 is I believe Christ taught these things.

00:29:10.540 Which ones?

00:29:11.420 The ones that were spelled out very clearly by John Calvin,

00:29:14.440 and we don't need to reinvent the wheel,

00:29:15.900 so we'll just go with him.

00:29:17.660 But it's not Calvin instead of Christ.

00:29:20.400 It's Christ as articulated through Calvin.

00:29:23.580 And here's the deal.

00:29:24.400 everyone does that right a confession of faith whether it's 1689 or westminster or the helvetic

00:29:30.340 confession or the heidelberg everybody has a confession you might say i reject all those i

00:29:35.060 just i just read the bible okay but you have an interpretation of the bible which means this you

00:29:39.720 have a confession but instead of it being a tried and true and tested confession over hundreds of

00:29:44.400 years that was actually formed together in ecumenical councils by by not one man but dozens

00:29:49.880 if not hundreds of men over time

00:29:52.160 with greater wisdom than you have.

00:29:53.700 What you're saying is I am confessional

00:29:55.440 and I submit to the confession of Joel.

00:29:58.280 Which again, it's just a lot of circles in the sermon.

00:30:02.300 Go back, see point A.

00:30:04.000 You submit to the dumb confession.

00:30:06.640 The confession of Joel,

00:30:08.180 if I ever come up with one,

00:30:09.340 you guys feel free, hold me accountable and say,

00:30:11.560 Pastor, you told us that's dumb.

00:30:14.960 So cut that out.

00:30:16.280 Everybody is confessional.

00:30:17.620 What I mean is everybody is reading the scripture and coming up with what it means.

00:30:24.300 And you're either doing that alone in isolation without the training and the equipping and

00:30:31.540 the ability to do it well, or you're submitting to better men than yourself and saying, I

00:30:37.960 think these guys did it well.

00:30:39.960 And none of that, that doesn't mean confessions are infallible.

00:30:42.680 Only this book, the word of God, is infallible without error.

00:30:46.780 So when I say I submit to the Second London Baptist

00:30:49.120 Confession of Faith, the 1689,

00:30:51.480 I'm not saying that it's infallible.

00:30:53.620 But I'm saying I believe those guys

00:30:55.920 did a better job than I could do.

00:30:58.600 That's what I'm saying.

00:30:59.720 So I'm saying this is infallible,

00:31:01.300 but what does it mean?

00:31:02.640 These guys attempted to explain what it means,

00:31:04.820 and I think their explanation of the interpretation,

00:31:08.280 the meaning of the scripture,

00:31:09.460 is better than the one that I could come up with.

00:31:12.700 And so in that sense, everyone is creedal.

00:31:15.680 Everyone has a creed.

00:31:17.020 Everyone has a confession.

00:31:18.480 It's just either a good one or a bad one.

00:31:20.480 Or to put it another way,

00:31:21.800 the way that the late great R.C. Sproul put it,

00:31:24.880 he said, everyone is a theologian.

00:31:27.340 Even the atheist is a theologian.

00:31:28.980 He's just a particularly bad theologian.

00:31:31.660 But it's not whether, but which.

00:31:33.820 Not whether, but which.

00:31:35.200 Which kind of theologian are you?

00:31:37.160 Which confession do you have?

00:31:38.780 You have one.

00:31:39.900 It's either the confession that exists in your own head

00:31:42.040 that you came up with 15 minutes ago,

00:31:44.100 or it's another confession, but you do have a confession, you do have a creed, you are a

00:31:48.820 theologian, so be a good one. And one of the ways to be a good one is to submit to better theologians

00:31:54.160 than yourself, to exercise humility. And one of the pinnacle illustrations or examples of

00:31:59.780 arrogance is pretending as though we're the first people in all of human history that have ever had

00:32:07.420 wisdom. That all of our forefathers were fools. And that's part of the reason why IQs have dropped

00:32:14.680 and why we've become so foolish is because we're arrogant. Humility and wisdom. So I said

00:32:21.360 righteousness and wisdom. Another thing that we could say from the book of Proverbs, humility

00:32:24.700 and wisdom, two peas in a pod. And arrogance and foolishness always go hand in glove. They're also

00:32:32.100 two peas in a pod. Where you find an arrogant man, you will find an ignorant man. And vice versa,

00:32:38.360 where you find an ignorant man, you will find an arrogant man. Our generation is so prideful,

00:32:44.380 thinking we're the first moral people to ever be born. And likewise, we've become, because of our

00:32:49.860 pride, so ignorant, so foolish. The most informed generation, more information than ever before,

00:32:57.260 more access to information, but so little wisdom. Because wisdom is not mere knowledge. Wisdom is

00:33:04.580 knowledge applied. Not just knowing what exists, but knowing how things work, how to live in God's

00:33:13.260 world, how to take this fact and even having the discernment to determine whether or not it is

00:33:19.300 in fact a fact. And then if it is a fact, taking that fact and saying, okay, so what? This is true,

00:33:26.040 but then how then shall we live as Francis Schaeffer would have said how does this apply if

00:33:31.680 this then that that's when you've begun to embark into the realm of wisdom when you're thinking if

00:33:38.320 this is true then I should do the following I should live like this so all that being back to

00:33:45.300 this diversity is our strength which is a lie it's not true diversity of thought is not a strength

00:33:50.720 diversity of conviction is not a strength that gets us back to Ephesians 4 and the importance

00:33:55.440 of unity. And it's not just unity of love. As you've sat in churches, those of you who have

00:34:02.040 grown up in the church, you've been in the Christian church, evangelical church your entire

00:34:06.100 life, you've probably heard at least a dozen, if not more, sermons over the years on the subject

00:34:12.160 of unity. But I would bet that the only sermons you've heard of on unity have only ever addressed

00:34:19.140 one biblical kind or type of unity, namely a unity of what I'm going to call a unity of love.

00:34:27.380 It's a unity that emphasizes love and common care. And that is biblical, it is right, but it is not

00:34:37.500 exclusively or exhaustively what unity in biblical terms is about. That is only one type of unity.

00:34:45.140 It is right. It is biblical, but it's incomplete. It is right. It is biblical, but it's not the

00:34:52.000 whole enchilada. So what's another kind of unity? I would submit to you that there are at least in

00:34:57.900 biblical terms, two primary types of unity, not merely one. One is a unity of love. The other

00:35:03.620 is unity of faith. One unity of love is a unity of common care. The other is a unity of common

00:35:10.920 convictions. That it's not just unity in the way that we care for one another, whether there be

00:35:16.820 agreement or disagreement, but it's also a unity that doesn't just stem from the heart, but a unity

00:35:22.860 that stems from the mind. That we actually share the same mind of Christ, as Paul writes to the

00:35:29.440 Corinthians. That we actually have the same convictions. Not just that we all love one another,

00:35:34.440 but we all love one another and ideally we all believe the same things now to be brothers in

00:35:41.680 christ you must have a unity not just of love but a unity of faith a unity of common conviction not

00:35:48.180 merely common care at the top level top shelf of theological triage so to be just to be at a base

00:35:56.460 level a minimum to be even fellow christians you have to have unity not just of common care but

00:36:02.740 again, you could actually not have that. You could not love one another, which means you're in sin,

00:36:07.740 but you could be in sin, not loving one another, not having a unity of common care. But if you at

00:36:12.900 least have a unity of common conviction at the top level, like the Trinity, then you actually

00:36:19.040 are brothers and sisters in Christ. That's the minimum bar. That's the prerequisite, what's

00:36:24.240 required to be the people of God, to be in the church, at least the visible church, that we

00:36:29.940 would recognize this person. God alone sees the heart. Man sees the outward appearance. But for

00:36:35.200 all intents and purposes, we as fallible man should be able to look at that person and say,

00:36:39.360 you agree with this? You agree with that? You agree with this? You agree with that? Then you

00:36:43.440 are a brother in Christ. That's one of the reasons why we recite the Apostles' Creed in our liturgy

00:36:49.860 every single Lord's Day. It's because what we're doing is we are cultivating and reminding

00:36:56.120 ourselves and stirring up anew and afresh each lord's day unity unity i believe we and we say

00:37:05.120 we we believe in god the father almighty what we're saying is we are the same we agree we are

00:37:13.660 unified christ has made us one and and what are we but notice how are we doing it we're not saying

00:37:19.040 we love each other we don't go around in our liturgy we don't go around the room and pat

00:37:23.240 each other on the head and say, you look so pretty and you're so sweet and I really have

00:37:26.340 lots of fluffy feelings for you. That's not how we do it. No, no, but we are accomplishing unity

00:37:33.260 and I would argue a greater and deeper unity. And how are we doing it? We're doing it with truth.

00:37:39.440 And the truth is meant to assume the love. It's not one against the other. But what we're doing

00:37:45.380 is we're saying, we believe these same truths about God. We believe these things. We are one.

00:37:53.240 We're on the same team.

00:37:55.620 We're on the same team.

00:37:56.940 So most of the sermons that you've probably heard about unity over the years

00:37:59.820 are unity of love sermons.

00:38:02.360 They're unity of common care sermons.

00:38:03.900 Not unity of faith, unity of knowledge, unity of common conviction.

00:38:08.420 But that's precisely what Ephesians 4, verse 7 through 16 talks about.

00:38:13.060 The first question that we need to answer is this.

00:38:15.100 Who grows the body?

00:38:16.560 Jesus.

00:38:17.860 But how does he grow the body?

00:38:19.480 That's the more particular question.

00:38:21.200 Jesus is ultimately the sovereign one, the head of the body,

00:38:24.120 and therefore the source of all the body's life and growth.

00:38:27.620 But how, what method does he utilize to grow the body?

00:38:31.300 Jesus has determined that he should use the body to grow itself.

00:38:36.100 Look at the last verse, verse 16.

00:38:38.700 From whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped,

00:38:44.000 when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

00:38:50.840 So who grows the body?

00:38:52.620 The ultimate answer, Jesus.

00:38:54.680 But in a secondary sense,

00:38:56.620 what agency does Jesus determine in his sovereignty to use?

00:39:00.780 The body itself.

00:39:02.620 The body builds the body.

00:39:04.540 The body, again, the body of Christ being the church,

00:39:07.320 the people of God, the saints, Christians.

00:39:09.600 So who builds Christians up?

00:39:11.640 Christians, fellow Christians.

00:39:14.340 How does the body at a local level,

00:39:16.620 a local church or universally, the universal church,

00:39:20.420 how does the body the church of christ grow well the body grows the body christ uses the saints

00:39:28.660 to stir one another up in love to build one another up through discipling one another the

00:39:35.680 body grows the body christ ultimately is the source as the head of the body right he's the

00:39:41.700 vine we are the branches so christ is the ultimate source and therefore sola de gloria he gets all

00:39:48.240 the glory alone. So Christ gets the glory for growing the body, but he uses the agency of the

00:39:55.000 body to grow the body. And that's not, for the record, it's not that he uses a piece of the body

00:40:01.080 to grow the rest of the body. That's not what Ephesians 4 teaches. Ephesians 4 doesn't teach

00:40:07.080 that Christ uses Joel and Connor to build up 200 other people. No, he uses all 200 to build 200.

00:40:16.940 So where do leaders come in?

00:40:18.320 Well, that's another portion of the text.

00:40:20.380 Let's look at verse 10.

00:40:21.860 No, 11.

00:40:23.160 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists,

00:40:26.120 the shepherds, and teachers to equip, to build the body.

00:40:29.780 No, but to equip the saints to build the body,

00:40:32.820 which is the work of ministry, for building up the body,

00:40:36.660 it literally says it, of Christ.

00:40:38.460 So who builds the body?

00:40:39.860 Ultimately, Jesus.

00:40:41.220 How does he do it?

00:40:42.240 Through human agency.

00:40:43.560 Which humans?

00:40:44.120 the whole church builds the whole church. And how does the church do it? The saints themselves,

00:40:51.320 you, the members of Christ's body, you build each other up and leaders in the church come in not to

00:40:57.580 do the work of ministry, which is building the body, but rather to equip you to do the work of

00:41:02.740 ministry. So leaders don't build the body. Leaders equip the body to build the body. And all of this

00:41:09.240 comes from christ who gives the growth so christ is the source the vine that gives nutrients and

00:41:16.020 life to the branches he's the head that gives the source of life to all the body but he does it

00:41:23.100 through agency in real time in tangible practical ways and he's growing his body by using the body

00:41:31.080 and the body is effective in building the body because the body is equipped by leaders given to

00:41:37.540 the body by christ those leaders being not five but four the leaders being apostles prophets

00:41:45.100 evangelists and shepherd teachers think of it like shepherd hyphen teacher that's the way that

00:41:51.160 it actually appears in the greek so it's not five but four a shepherd teacher what's that

00:41:55.500 right it's two roles but but you know two functions but in one title one office uh so so

00:42:01.860 what office has as its two primary roles shepherding and teaching pastor so it should i

00:42:08.460 believe that the proper reading of this verse verse 11 of ephesians 4 is fourfold ministry not five

00:42:13.860 and who is it it's apostles it's um prophets it's evangelists and it's pastors and cross-referencing

00:42:21.820 over to ephesians 220 it says that he gave the apostles and prophets i said this last week i'll

00:42:27.420 recap quickly apostles and prophets to be the foundation of the church and christ jesus himself

00:42:33.700 as the cornerstone the uh the most pivotal integral part of the foundation so the apostles

00:42:40.260 and prophets i believe this is i think good theology the way that it should be read this is

00:42:44.920 reformed theology it's also cessationist theology which not everybody likes cessationist just means

00:42:50.480 believing not all but some of the gifts of the spirit have ceased okay but but the view is this

00:42:56.480 that apostles and prophets are serving, not today, but they served at a time in laying the

00:43:04.780 foundation for the church. And they are still serving today, but they're serving through the

00:43:08.920 pages of scripture. We still have the apostles and prophets working together and working in the

00:43:14.440 modern church today, but they're working through the scripture because we have the apostles and

00:43:19.020 prophets inscripturated. In general, you could say like this, prophets, Old Testament, apostles,

00:43:24.560 knew. So apostles and prophets, they were used by Christ to do various things, but one of the chief

00:43:30.600 things is to write the Bible. So what's the foundation of the church? The Bible. And who's

00:43:37.200 the central message of the Bible? Christ Jesus. He's the capstone, the cornerstone. So the foundation

00:43:42.640 of the church, right, the church is the pillar and buttress of the truth because it's planted

00:43:45.980 on the foundation of truth, infallible truth. And then the two roles, so that's apostles and

00:43:51.440 prophets so they're done because the foundation is not laid and relayed and relayed see first

00:43:57.280 corinthians chapter 3 paul says i as an expert builder laid a foundation and it does not need

00:44:02.760 to be laid again so the foundation has already been laid sufficiently fully and properly and

00:44:09.520 that's the apostles and the prophets and they still speak to this day as the word of god is

00:44:14.340 properly exegeted and applied okay so that work is done think of building a house you don't always

00:44:20.720 have the same guy from start to finish now you could but but with division of labor labor in

00:44:28.420 many cases you have teams of different guys so there's foundation layers and then they finish

00:44:34.000 and you don't see them anymore they go home and the guy who did the foundation is probably not

00:44:39.620 the guy who's going to be the plumber who's going to come in and put all the the the pipes you know

00:44:44.900 and then the electrician who's going to come and do all the wiring these are different guys and

00:44:48.380 you got framers, you got roofers, you got all these different things, right? So there's different

00:44:52.620 teams. Likewise, you got two primary teams when it comes to leaders in the church. And all these

00:44:58.400 leaders, they don't do the work of ministry. Remember the first point that I'm making, they

00:45:02.420 equip the saints, you, to do that ministry. And what is the work of ministry? That the body builds

00:45:08.120 up the body. The body builds the body. The body of Christ grows because the body of Christ is

00:45:13.600 growing the body of Christ. And the body of Christ is doing this successfully because they're

00:45:18.220 properly equipped. By who? By two waves, two teams of leaders. One team that already came and gave us

00:45:24.920 this, apostles and prophets. And then another team that uses this. This is the only authority that

00:45:31.320 the second team has, by the way. The second team, evangelists and pastors, use this. And insofar as

00:45:37.920 by the grace of God we use this properly, then that evangelist and pastor are successful in their

00:45:43.220 work to equip the saints for the work of ministry. So we had apostles and prophets, and we still have

00:45:48.040 them in a sense in the Word of God. And then we have evangelists and pastors working on the

00:45:53.800 foundation of the apostles and prophets, framing the house, coming and doing the wiring and the

00:45:59.880 plumbing and the roofing. And when it's all done, what will the end goal be? And this is the final

00:46:05.520 point of the sermon today. What will the end goal be? If you have your notes, turn it over to the

00:46:10.060 back. What is the end goal of the body's growth? This is focusing now on verse 13 and 14 of our

00:46:15.020 text verse 13 says that our goal is to build up the body until we all attain the unity of love

00:46:22.640 fluffy feelings is the goal no until we attain the unity of the faith and the knowledge not subjective

00:46:32.340 but the objective knowledge of the son of god this means that our aim is not only to have

00:46:40.860 unity of care and love, but also, it's not one against the other, but unity of care and love

00:46:47.160 and unity of faith and knowledge. Now, zoom in on these two sentences. Very important right here.

00:46:55.500 Unity of knowledge is not a politically correct concept, especially when it comes to claims about

00:47:01.400 knowing anything objectively or definitively about the Son of God, about Jesus. When someone today

00:47:08.100 He says, this is true about Jesus definitively.

00:47:13.020 And if you disagree, you're wrong.

00:47:16.260 That's not a popular thing today, right?

00:47:19.560 This is who Jesus is, period, end of discussion.

00:47:22.940 If you disagree with me, nanny, nanny, boo-boo, you're wrong.

00:47:25.600 Right now, you can do it with a bad attitude.

00:47:27.580 But to do it at all, even if you do it with the most humility and grace you could possibly muster,

00:47:33.000 you will still probably end up on the ADL's list, right?

00:47:36.460 you will still be hated hated by many why because one thing that people despise today is any claim

00:47:44.920 towards objective truth and you know how long people have hated that in one sense because of

00:47:51.620 total depravity because because the heart of man is wicked above all else because in our fallen

00:47:57.600 state apart from the saving grace that comes through christ alone through faith alone in him

00:48:02.820 alone, because man is bent towards wickedness from the womb, from his youth, there's a sense

00:48:09.200 in which all of humanity and all of human history has always hated truth. But I would argue

00:48:15.980 that particularly Western people, and particularly in the last 80 years, uniquely hates truth.

00:48:26.260 Uniquely. Particularly one kind of truth, which is what you might call true truth. It's really the

00:48:31.880 only kind of truth, but definitive, objective, universal truth. And do you know why? This is,

00:48:41.280 I'll admit, here's the disclaimer, this is overly generalized. But this is a big reason. It's not

00:48:46.700 exhaustive, but this is a big reason why. Because the last guy who made really strong dogmatic

00:48:52.380 claims was Hitler. That's a big part of it. And that's why the post-war sentiment, what I mean

00:49:00.860 by that is everything that's been believed by westerners over the last 80 years it doesn't mean

00:49:06.140 that it's always wrong but it should be read with discernment and suspicion because so much of what

00:49:11.680 america and europe has tried to do over the last century particularly the last 80 years is is set

00:49:18.840 up a hedge of protection a guard against fascism what they would deem as being authoritarianism

00:49:26.100 totalitarian uh a a strong charismatic dogmatic figure who would say this is true you don't we

00:49:34.160 don't like that guy that's a bad guy if you're wondering who's the bad guy that's that's the

00:49:37.740 bad guy you don't want to be that guy and because of that because of that what we've thought is

00:49:43.080 well instead of having strong patriarchal god-fearing but universal truth believing

00:49:50.260 absolute truth believing men the easier solution is just to have no men right you can have men in

00:49:57.740 a literal physical sense but in the proverbial sense they'll they'll all be effeminate they'll

00:50:03.860 all be weak they'll be men as lewis talked about men without chest that's what we have today we

00:50:10.500 have men without chest we have men that have been castrated and yet we tell them to be fruitful

00:50:17.240 We bid the geldings fruitful, is what Lewis says.

00:50:20.860 So we have men that are not really men.

00:50:23.380 And why?

00:50:24.380 Well, a big part of it is fear.

00:50:26.300 The reason why we don't have men today

00:50:28.160 is because we're afraid that if you have a man,

00:50:30.780 a real man, he'll be an oppressor.

00:50:34.020 He'll be the bad guy.

00:50:35.460 He'll be the next bad guy.

00:50:36.840 He'll be evil.

00:50:38.000 If you have power, it'll be abused.

00:50:40.220 And evangelicalism picked up on this hook, line, and sinker

00:50:44.080 and just gave it some biblically colored wrapping paper.

00:50:48.000 And so what we said is, well, a theology of suffering,

00:50:50.360 a theology of the cross, right?

00:50:52.840 How did Jesus conquer?

00:50:54.260 Well, he laid down his life.

00:50:55.680 That's true.

00:50:56.680 He laid down his life for a full 72 hours.

00:51:00.920 That's it.

00:51:02.200 Then he was done laying down his life.

00:51:04.340 And he took it up again.

00:51:05.920 And he didn't just take it up again,

00:51:07.720 but he took up a resurrected, glorified life.

00:51:10.060 And then he didn't just stop there.

00:51:11.240 He ascended in glory and majesty and power to the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

00:51:17.220 And He promises to come back with an iron scepter and to separate the wheat from the chaff

00:51:22.320 and to judge both the quick and the dead.

00:51:24.800 He is not merely Messiah, meek and mild, but He is conquering King of kings and Lord of lords.

00:51:32.480 We follow Him in baptism in His death, but only so that we might follow Him in His resurrection life.

00:51:40.500 those who suffer with him might also reign with him we have been called priests and kings to reign

00:51:48.260 with the king of kings we have been given authority and splendor and majesty to rule not only suffer

00:51:56.360 that's only part of the story it's an integral part of the story you can't skip that part of

00:52:01.620 the story or you miss the heart of everything but it's only a part we suffer because we will reign

00:52:07.940 we die that we might live and God decides you don't decide you don't get to be a kamikaze

00:52:16.480 evangelical pilot you don't get to determine what role you'll play God in his sovereignty

00:52:22.000 has determined for 2 000 years of church history that some might be martyrs and that they would

00:52:27.760 reign with Christ only in the life to come but in this life here and now they only suffered

00:52:32.220 but that's not all of christian history is it it's not you have polycarp but you also have

00:52:40.180 constantine and this is why all the young guys are getting real excited about the you know

00:52:46.040 charlemagne and you know king richard the lion heart and all the all these guys are for ferdinand

00:52:51.380 i didn't even know i thought ferdinand was a movie about a bull you know turns out ferdinand

00:52:56.200 well you know was a spanish king and he was awesome and he loved jesus and he was a sinner

00:53:01.500 like you and me and he made some mistakes but he did awesome things and so all that being said

00:53:07.080 that is part of christianity but that's not the part that you've been taught you know what you've

00:53:12.220 been taught from birth you've been taught crusades were bad you've been taught any use of power is

00:53:19.640 bad you've been taught that power is that it's not merely that power can be used for evil nefarious

00:53:25.380 purposes you've been taught that power in and of itself is inherently evil right so so then what

00:53:32.860 are conservatives right so politically political application here what are conservatives whether

00:53:37.520 they be christian or not what do they always say well democrats are the real races yeah okay

00:53:43.080 duh duh democrats were they were they were literally the enslavers of course they were

00:53:49.840 the real races we know that we've known democrats were the real races for approximately let's see

00:53:54.120 uh 200 years surely we can move on from that rhetoric that's not going to win an election

00:53:59.960 or democrats or or if we if we take down the satanist statue in the capitol building in ohio

00:54:06.240 then they might take down our nativity scene no it's not equal principle pluralism diversity

00:54:13.740 is our strength classical liberalism is a joke it was always a joke it only appeared in the optic

00:54:21.580 externally successful for a short in the span of human history a very brief a breath short

00:54:28.500 span of time because the residue of christendom for 1500 years was so formidable and so strong

00:54:36.480 that it was like a gust of wind that caused that little dinky sailboat of classical liberalism to

00:54:41.880 look like it had a motor it never did never so the idea of well the satanist statue that we'll let

00:54:48.340 that exists. We'll tolerate it. It doesn't mean we like it, but we'll tolerate it so that we can

00:54:51.460 have our Christian, you know, Christmas parade. No, or here's another option. Let me, let me throw

00:54:55.520 this out. Just, you know, humbly submit it for your careful consideration. What if, what if like

00:55:00.400 Michael Cassidy, you go into the Capitol building and you take this, the Satanist statue, you behead

00:55:05.840 it, you throw it on the ground, and then you still do the Christmas parade. And you say, you know

00:55:09.380 why? You know why? Because Jesus is king. And there's political ramifications to the kingship

00:55:16.200 of Jesus. And not all cultures are equal. Because culture, coming from the Latin word cultus,

00:55:23.120 simply means worship. And not all gods are equal. There is a God above all other demonic gods. A

00:55:30.240 king above all earthly kings. A lord above all earthly lords. And blessed is the nation that has

00:55:35.860 Yahweh as its God. And so we will serve him and him alone. And there are not equal freedoms and

00:55:42.160 rights for blasphemy. Blasphemy laws were on the books in this great nation once upon a time,

00:55:47.520 and by God's grace, I'd love to see them make a comeback. And I think they will. One day. May not

00:55:54.140 be in my lifetime, but one day it will. And you know why? Because truth is not relative. It is

00:55:59.780 not subjective. It is not internal. It is not personal. There are certain truths, true truths,

00:56:05.620 real truth, that would be true, as Wilson has said, whether I was ever born or not. Whether I

00:56:11.520 live or die the truth that which is truly truth is not contingent upon me or you it would be true

00:56:19.500 whether you were ever born or not common core math two plus two will always be four it two plus

00:56:27.440 two is four in hell it's it's it's four in china it's four and in these united states it's four in

00:56:34.540 heaven it'll be four ten thousand eons from now and it was four before the foundations of the

00:56:39.400 world relate, because it's true. It's true. And true unity is not only unity of the fields.

00:56:49.160 I don't want to minimize that too much, because unity of love is a real thing, and it does matter.

00:56:52.700 But it's not merely unity of love, common care. It's unity of truth, unity of conviction,

00:56:59.160 unity of knowledge, unity of doctrine. Our strength is not being divided when it comes to our beliefs.

00:57:07.180 And that is one of the biggest lies that incepted itself,

00:57:10.300 I believe, right around the time after World War I and World War II

00:57:13.580 because men came back.

00:57:15.800 And God blessed them.

00:57:16.620 I don't want to disparage.

00:57:17.600 The greatest generation, God blessed them.

00:57:19.880 And I think greatest generation is an appropriate title.

00:57:21.840 But they came back, and they weren't post-millennial.

00:57:27.620 They had seen so much atrocity, so much suffering.

00:57:31.300 They were just, I can't believe hopeful things anymore.

00:57:36.540 I just, I can't.

00:57:38.100 I've seen a man ripped apart.

00:57:39.820 I've seen this.

00:57:40.620 I've seen, I just, I can't.

00:57:42.780 And they came back.

00:57:44.140 And even though we won,

00:57:47.080 there was this sense of nihilism undergirding the American people.

00:57:51.020 It's just, it's all eventually going to burn.

00:57:53.600 There's a timestamp now.

00:57:55.360 It's shifted from the Puritans, a city on a hill,

00:57:58.360 and it's only going to grow progressively

00:57:59.740 like a mustard seed into a tree gradually over time.

00:58:02.580 The leaven working its way through the whole batch of dough.

00:58:05.720 It went, no, this is our moment, and we're going to give our kids everything we got,

00:58:10.300 because eat, drink, and be married, for tomorrow we die. And then in comes the boomers.

00:58:18.000 And the boomers got a lot. And for the record, the boomers, because I don't want to disparage,

00:58:22.260 right? We honor our father. The boomers worked really hard. Here's the difference. Millennials

00:58:27.100 and Gen Z, some are lazy. A lot are lazy. A lot are lazy. However, some do work hard,

00:58:33.780 and they're frustrated. You know why? They're frustrated. It's wrong. I think, I think we give

00:58:38.460 into the sinful temptation. It is sin. It's wrong. We'll say the boomers didn't have to work. That's

00:58:42.220 a lie. The boomers worked hard. Here's the difference though, between a boomer and a

00:58:45.220 millennial. Um, the boomers worked hard and their work worked. The millennial works hard

00:58:52.640 and their work does not work. Now, some of them are just lazy and entitled and spoiled. That's

00:58:59.460 true. But some, they're like, why work? Why? My work, when I work, it doesn't work. The boomers,

00:59:09.640 they worked and they worked hard, but it paid. Work paid off. And now we're living in a time

00:59:16.060 where people are rightly, sons, have been exasperated by their fathers. Precisely what

00:59:22.080 the scripture says not to do. That has happened. And so all this being said, from that time,

00:59:26.840 think 1940s what incepted into western the western mind and then the church was was a

00:59:33.020 bulwark and counter-cultural nope the evangelicals do what evangelicals do they adopted it to try to

00:59:37.860 be attractive and reach the culture and and hook line and sinker immediately compromised so sadly

00:59:42.940 that's you know that's what evangelicals do so the the culture and the church sadly bought into

00:59:48.240 that lie and said you know what it's all going to burn dispensational pre-millennialism jesus is

00:59:53.600 going to come back next thursday there's no point building a city on a hill because it's all going

00:59:57.320 to end anyways and it's all suffering but i guess you know suffering is a biblical tenant right

01:00:02.060 suffering of the cross doctrine of the cross and you know the big thing that we want to avoid

01:00:06.320 is strength and power because that's what ultimately lends towards corruption and evil

01:00:11.740 never again can we ever have a hitler type and so how do you get rid of a hitler type you get

01:00:16.080 rid of absolute truth transcendent truth dogmatic claims uh you get rid of patriarchy you get rid

01:00:21.060 of nationalism, national pride, right? That's a bad thing. So you do globalism instead of

01:00:25.800 nationalism. You do feminism instead of patriarchy. You do critical race theory instead of tradition. 0.99

01:00:32.020 You do revisionist history. You do inclusive and subjective truth instead of exterior, objective,

01:00:39.220 external truth. And that's where we've been for 80 years. And by God's grace, I think a lot of

01:00:46.260 people are sick of it. And so I think what's going to happen, here's a little, you know, I said

01:00:51.220 prophecy is done, but here's a little prophecy. No, it's not a prophecy. Here's a prediction

01:00:56.240 that is fallible and could be wrong. Here's a prediction. I think that what's going to happen,

01:00:59.840 I think R.R. Reno nailed it, right? So those are your two books. If you need to read any two books,

01:01:04.480 you know, by the end of the year, you got, you know, like a day, you know, but you want to catch

01:01:08.880 up on what was cool in 2023, there's really, it's only two books. It's Return of the Strong Gods

01:01:13.060 and Defenders of the West.

01:01:14.180 You read those two, you get it.

01:01:15.260 You're part of the cool kids.

01:01:17.560 So, you know, read those two books.

01:01:19.100 But here's the idea.

01:01:20.520 R.R. Reno, Return of the Strong Gods.

01:01:22.520 The strong gods, he doesn't mean like actual deities,

01:01:24.580 like Christ.

01:01:25.500 The strong gods that he's speaking of

01:01:27.520 is tradition, family, patriotism, nationalism,

01:01:32.780 patriarchalism.

01:01:34.240 These are the strong gods.

01:01:35.700 Objective, transcendent truth

01:01:37.060 rather than subjective, internal.

01:01:38.720 These are the strong gods.

01:01:39.720 And his whole premise, and I think he's right.

01:01:41.400 I can't, you know, I can't tell you the timing, but I think he's right in the concept. He's saying

01:01:45.760 these are inevitably coming back because here's the deal. You cannot escape nature. The industrial

01:01:51.260 revolution and technological advances have given us a sense that we can defy nature, but even that

01:01:56.820 will only happen for a time. Eventually, nature, as one great prophet, aka Jurassic Park, once said,

01:02:04.220 right, nature, life finds a way, right? That's literally every horror movie. Every single horror

01:02:09.260 movie is guys thinking they can defy nature and then nature eats them right that is you know i

01:02:15.040 just you know spoiler that every single suspense movie i've ruined because that's what it's all

01:02:19.040 about and that there's a reason why that cliche exists because there is some truth to it and so

01:02:23.920 i think that you know nature is eventually going to overcome and there's going to be a forced

01:02:29.880 inevitable return to the strong gods uh globalism will uh ultimately uh fall to nationalism a return

01:02:38.180 of nationalism. I believe that. Because globalism doesn't work. It's not sustainable. So even for

01:02:43.680 the atheist, if he wants to survive, eventually he'll find out that two and two makes four and

01:02:49.380 not five. And he's going to return to these things. And we will find feminism does not work.

01:02:53.800 Critical race theory does not work. A radical subjectivism does not work. This doesn't work.

01:02:59.320 And we will return, I believe, as a people, as a culture, even the West. Now we might be defeated

01:03:04.460 first. I hope we're not. So we, you know, I don't know. We might all be speaking Mandarin at this

01:03:09.620 point. I hope not. But we will return, whether we're the United States or whether we're

01:03:14.300 something else at that point. We'll see what God in his province determines in history.

01:03:18.480 But we will, as a people, the world will return to the strong gods. So here's the question,

01:03:23.580 and I'll leave it with this. It's not whether but which. Remember that old adage? Not whether but

01:03:28.280 which. You're going to have nationalism. Not whether but which. It will return. So are you

01:03:34.340 going to have pagan nationalism or Christian nationalism? You're going to have patriarchy.

01:03:39.660 You will. Because nature cannot be inevitably defined. You're going to have patriarchy. So

01:03:46.180 it will be Christian patriarchy or will it be Andrew Tate? You're going to have objective

01:03:52.340 transcendent truth right is it going to be islam or christianity someone will win out

01:04:01.340 someone with the strong gods tradition family patriarchy nationalism patriots it will return

01:04:09.860 because human civilization cannot inevitably survive without these truths but then the question

01:04:15.400 is which version of these things will you have and so instead of doing the gandalf move standing

01:04:20.960 you know on a bridge in between the bell rock and the hobbit you know and and saying you shall not

01:04:25.960 pass here i am tim keller with a third way of a soft weak complementarianism to defend you against

01:04:34.480 the mean patriarchy but also keep my christian card and not be a feminist like no i'm not going

01:04:39.700 to do that instead what i'm going to do is i'm going to stick to the script and i'm going to go

01:04:43.060 right over here and say no the strong gods do win but they should all be christian christian

01:04:48.200 nationalism, Christian patriarchy, Christian this, Christian that, Christian that, because Christ

01:04:51.980 is the strongest of all gods. He is King of King and Lord of Lords. And that is not mere unity of

01:04:58.280 love and the fields, but a unity of common conviction and truth. And apart from that kind

01:05:04.240 of unity, a nation will fall, a church will fall, your family will fall. If you think diversity,

01:05:11.520 not color but thought cultists worship doctrine if diversity of doctrine is your strength

01:05:20.320 you will fall and even satan knew that a house divided against itself cannot stand

01:05:27.020 beelzebub doesn't cast out beelzebub satan isn't even dumb enough to do that only americans

01:05:33.000 and evangelical christians unless we repent let's pray father help us to be humble

01:05:40.180 arrogance always comes with ignorance. Help us, Lord, to be informed, not transformed, or I'm sorry,

01:05:48.500 not conformed by this world and its culture and its lives, but transformed by knowledge, the renewing

01:05:55.840 of our minds, being conformed more and more every day to your truth. And we pray, Lord, that this

01:06:02.220 conforming into the image of Christ, transforming into his image, growing in knowledge, growing in

01:06:08.840 truth, growing in doctrine, that it would also lend towards righteousness, that it would not just be

01:06:13.620 an ivory tower doctrinal endeavor, but it would be righteousness with legs, righteousness on the

01:06:20.780 ground, applied to every single realm of all of human society, that we would be a city on a hill.

01:06:27.180 No, not old covenant Israel, but in a sense, a city on a hill that the nations would see that

01:06:33.220 they would flock to christ not to these united states but to christ saying he is the arbiter

01:06:39.260 of all truth and those nations which fear the lord will be blessed we pray this for christ's sake

01:06:46.120 in his name amen

The NXR Podcast - January 01, 2024

SERMON - True Unity Always Includes Division

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